Chapter 9: The Ghost
Season 1 Episode 9
Themes: Perseverance, Conflicts with Friends
Prominent Characters
Hilda
Hilda tries hard to help her friend Frida in this episode, but she feels bad when she’s ultimately not able to keep her promise.
Frida
Frida has a bit of an identity crisis in this episode when she learns that a ghost has been cleaning her room and she starts to question her ultra-organized self-identity. This seems to put her on edge, because she also starts getting in fights with her friends.
David
David is scared on some of the trio’s adventures in this episode, like when they go to the graveyard to wake up the ghost. David also teases Frida at some points during this episode, which results in the pair fighting.
Plot Highlights
- Hilda and David rush to Frida’s house for a “friend emergency” when Frida wakes up to find her room a complete mess, even though it’s usually neat and tidy. Hilda thinks it’s a ghost, and promises Frida that she’ll take care of it while Frida is busy running for class president. While cleaning up the room, Frida also realizes her favorite book has gone missing.
- The group sets up a camera to film Frida’s room overnight, and when they watch the video back they see that Frida was actually the one making a mess of her room. She admits to it, but says that she’s always made a mess of her room and woken up with it clean. Hilda concludes that a ghost must’ve been cleaning it, but now the ghost is gone. David starts making fun of Frida for thinking that rooms cleaned themselves, and the two get into a physical fight that Hilda breaks up.
- With the new knowledge that a ghost has been keeping her room clean, Frida starts to doubt her ultra-organized self-identity. She becomes unsure of herself while campaigning for class president. Hilda promises to fix things by finding the ghost and bringing him back.
- Hilda, Frida, and David head to the graveyard to wake up the ghost that they think has been cleaning Frida’s room. When they find him, he explains that he liked to visit to read one of Frida’s books and would then clean her room as a token of appreciation, but now the book is gone to he has no reason to visit. They then wake up his brother, a ghost in a nearby grave, who they think might have taken the book.
- The trio of kids wrestles with the brother to win the book back, but he defeats them. Hilda refuses to give up, saying “there’s always something else you can do,” and lays on the brother’s grave to force him to give the book back. When he does give them the book, they realize it’s not the book they needed after all.
- Hilda feels like a bad friend because she wasn’t able to keep her promise to Frida, and she apologizes for failing her. When Frida doesn’t show up to give her campaign speech at school, Hilda and David go to find her at her house. She’s defeated, and explains that if she’s not perfect she doesn’t know who she is anymore. Hilda tries to assure her that they’re still her friends, but Frida gets mad at Hilda and David because David has been teasing her and Hilda got her hopes up then let her down. This leads to a big fight, and Frida tells Hilda she’s sorry Hilda ever moved to the town. The episode comes to a close as Hilda and David leave Frida’s house.
Discussion Questions
This episode touches on the theme of perseverance, in addition to exploring the theme of conflicts with friends. We encourage you to explore some of the following questions in a discussion with your child.
- Do you remember a time in this episode when Frida and David got mad at each other and started fighting? What happened? Why do you think Frida was upset with David? How do you think they could have handled the situation without fighting?
- Have you ever gotten into a fight with a friend? What happened, and how did you feel?
- Throughout this episode, Hilda encountered several challenges when trying to help her friend Frida get her ghost back. Why do you think Hilda kept trying even when things were hard? Can you think of a time that you had to overcome challenges to accomplish a goal?
- How do you think Hilda felt when she wasn’t able to keep her promise to Frida in this episode? Do you think it was her fault? Why or why not?
